


a sky beyond the corners

by lunardistance



Series: SH 30 Day Fic Meme [6]
Category: Sound Horizon
Genre: Childhood Friends, Gen, Gender or Sex Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 13:33:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10945539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunardistance/pseuds/lunardistance
Summary: A blue-eyed boy meets a red-eyed girl. Even in this world, the wheels of fate begin turning.(day 6: write a short fanfiction that features a male and female character.)





	a sky beyond the corners

A sky cut off at the corners. This is the world he knows, the only world he has known ever since he was a child.

His earliest memories are of this room; of him stretching up from the ground to reach up to the blue sky. He was far too small back then to even touch beyond the wall, but by the time he had grown enough, it was with great disappointment that he discovered the wide space he had been reaching out for all this time was trapped beyond glass.

There is a world beyond that window, he is sure.

Opening the windows too often is bad for his health, his nurse says, especially with his already weak constitution, but he cannot help but admire it. Despite the stories they tell to scare him into being obedient, the forest holds great intrigue for him, and he has always longed to escape this room and go deep into the forest, into the world that is so close to him but remains ever beyond his reach.

There is a world beyond that window; that he is sure of.

If the birds can fly so freely and their wings can carry them wherever they wish to go, why should he be so different? Mutter says he is delicate, and Walter’s eyes are always alert on the rare occasion that he is allowed outside, but he does not see why he cannot go out as he so longs for. The birds in the air have nothing but their feathers and beaks and talons and their wings to carry them through the air, and yet they can soar wherever they please. A human boy should be no different.

There is a world beyond that window, he is absolutely certain.

A world with birds and mysterious forests and… and other people. He is not foolish – he knows that there are other people in this world aside from him and Mutter and Walter and his nurse and everyone in the manor with them.

He knows that there are other children like him, of course, but he has never seen one. The closest he has come to encountering them are the children of the servants, and he has never been allowed to stay around them for very long. Those children had been a little grubby, with dark hair and dark eyes and smudges of dirt on their cheeks and scabs on their elbows and knees.

Are all other children like that, he wonders? Or are some of them like him, with pale skin and blond hair and blue-green eyes? Are they like adults, some of them gruff but kind like Walter, others beautiful yet detached like Mutter?

But, he supposes, if birds in the sky are not much different to human boys in square rooms, then how much more different could human boys in square rooms be to human children outside of them?

There is a world beyond that window, he knows it is true.

But it is not until the evening that a silver-haired, red-eyed girl appears at his window, beyond the barrier of glass, that he finally gets to see it for himself.

“I always wondered who lived here,” she tells him breathlessly as he unlatches the windows and slowly pushes the panes of glass open. “But you never came out to play.”

“I… I do not go outside,” he replies, finding that he has to swallow before he can speak as his mouth has suddenly gone dry. “I am not allowed to.”

“Why not?” she asks curiously, peering into his square room with the cut-off corners.

“I do not know,” he mutters, cheeks reddening at her question. “Mutter says I am… I am delicate.”

“Ah, Mutti says the same thing of me sometimes!” She beams brightly, eyes glittering in the moonlight. “Although she also says that exploring the forest is good for your health. Much better than simply staying in one place all the time, although I can only go around at night or when the sun is not shining too brightly.”

“Is that true?” he echoes faintly. If that is so, why will they not let her outside?

“Well, Mutti is a medicine woman, so she knows how to help people become healthy and stay healthy,” the girl shrugs. “Many people come to her, so I think that if she says it is so, it must be right.”

He stays silent after that, hands curling on the windowsill as he contemplates her words. Perhaps Mutter does not know that going around the forest is supposed to keep you healthy. Perhaps that is why she herself does not go out very often, either, and why she appears so pale at times.

He starts suddenly, feeling something touch his hand, and looks down to see the girl’s fingers curled lightly over the top of them. She smiles at him gently.

“The forest is very beautiful at night. Would you like to see it?”

Part of him says to refuse her offer – Mutter would be furious if she knew, and perhaps he would never be let out of his room again. All the stories his nurse tells him come to mind, of the dark being that dwells in the forest and the witch that resides within, waiting to gobble up disobedient children.

But the larger part of him remembers the birds in the sky, flying wherever their hearts desire. His heart wants to soar with them, wants wings to guide him through the unknown world outside.

“Yes,” he breathes, gripping her hands tightly as she helps him to pull himself up on the window ledge, swinging over to the world outside.

“My name is Märliese,” she tells him as he lands on the ground, cheeks bright with excitement.

“I am Elias,” he replies, lips stretching up in a grin to match hers.

There is a world beyond that window, a sky that is not cut off at the corners. There are wings for a bird that has yet to learn how to fly, and now he knows for sure.


End file.
